MKBHD's Desk Setup, But For Normal(ish) People

0:00 This is MKBHD's hyperfunctional and very expensive desk.

0:04 And this is a functioning replica complete

0:06 with a computer that's 10 times cheaper,

0:08 two knockoff Pro Display XDRs, and one item Marquez is now daily driving.

0:13 The biggest difference, this entire replica, including the desk itself,

0:17 costs less than just one product that Marquez is currently using.

0:20 But before I can show you the full knockoff,

0:22 let's have Marquez give us the full tour of his setup.

0:24 All right.

0:25 So, it is Tuesday, January 27th, 2026,

0:28 and this is my current desk setup to start the year.

0:32 So, this desk surface itself [music] is huge,

0:35 and it is a customsized Next Desk Air.

0:39 The top is white aluminum.

0:41 It's thin, and it's really supported all the [music] way across,

0:43 so it doesn't bow or anything like that.

0:45 And it is a big enough surface to hold all of the things on my desk.

0:50 Yep, it's 8 ft.

0:51 [snorts] the chair I've been sitting on for years now.

0:54 I've talked about these since probably 15, 20 years ago.

0:58 This is the Herman Miller Embody.

1:00 I don't know if I've had this exact one as long,

1:02 [music] but I've had a Herman Miller Embody at my desk since college,

1:09 and I graduated from college a decade ago.

1:13 Oh my god, I'm so old.

1:17 So, I've [snorts] got a bunch of accessories,

1:19 uh, peripherals, and little tiny things on my desk.

1:22 So, I'll get to the main stuff in a second, but I do have two mouse pads.

1:26 One of them for the mouse, one of them for the accessories and tech

1:30 that I keep in temporary ways at my desk.

1:33 But, it's a red artisan mouse pad.

1:36 It's kind of like this perfect wine red.

1:39 And this is the phones that I have not wiped yet that I

1:42 may switch back to that I'm testing or using in some way.

1:46 So, all the other phones that I'm not testing or using anymore are in storage,

1:51 but I still have my Pixel 10 Pro,

1:53 my iPhone Air, and my Samsung Galaxy Trifold over

1:56 here face down on this nice soft mouse pad surface.

2:00 So, I've got two power related accessories here.

2:03 One is this Belelin charger under my uh monitor stand,

2:08 which just has a MagSafe charger,

2:09 another wireless charger, [music] and an Apple Watch charger.

2:12 Uh this kind of just slides under here.

2:14 for most of the time I'm not using it and just out of the way.

2:16 And then I have a This is pretty old, but it's a wireless charger.

2:20 I think OPPO makes this.

2:22 It says Air Boo, [music] so it's got to be.

2:23 Yeah, OPPO makes this.

2:24 It's just a generic wireless charger,

2:26 but it's up so that more variety of sizes of devices can work on it.

2:33 I don't have to align it.

2:34 So, this is a daily driver setup right here in front of me.

2:37 I've gotten a lot of crap for this, but it

2:39 looks a little weird and I'm fine with it.

2:41 It's my keyboard, my mouse, and my trackpad.

2:44 So, a lot of you guys know I use a Mac.

2:46 Uh, this is the Apple wireless trackpad.

2:49 It's USB type-C now, and it's black, but I have them both going on at the same

2:54 time because I usually use the mouse over here, which is my Logitech MXM 4.

2:59 Uh, and then when I'm editing,

3:00 I specifically use the trackpad to do my horizontal

3:05 scrolling and to do my swiping [music] between spaces.

3:08 Uh, so I do a lot of the gestures on the trackpad and the clicking on the mouse.

3:12 Then the keyboard in the middle, which is my Keyron Q1 Max with a couple

3:17 custom key caps on it and it's nice and heavy.

3:20 Sits in the middle of my desk and it sounds like this.

3:25 This webcam up here is my Opel C1.

3:28 I discovered them right around COVID because everyone

3:31 got really into webcams because of remote work.

3:33 I actually invested in the company.

3:35 I think they're great.

3:36 This is a really good webcam.

3:37 I recommend it obviously.

3:39 So, now we get to audio stuff,

3:40 which I've had [music] maybe the longest term out of anything at my desk.

3:44 We've got the studio monitors on either side of my displays.

3:47 These are Yamaha HS8s.

3:49 I love them dearly.

3:50 They're sitting on these [music] Oral X like

3:52 foam pads and they're pointed at my ears.

3:54 And the HS8s are the best.

3:57 They're simply the best.

3:59 They were the best 20 years ago.

4:01 Therefore, they're still the best.

4:02 And then they [music] have I have my headphones

4:04 over here which are my editing/open back studio headphones.

4:08 These are Sennheiser HD650s.

4:10 I like open back because I'm in a studio environment [music] where I can like

4:14 turn around and talk to people and then turn around and get back to work.

4:17 And they both plug into my Apollo Twin uh by Universal Audio.

4:22 That's my DACK.

4:23 That's also my giant volume knob.

4:25 It's very satisfying and convenient.

4:27 It lets me change uh between the headphones and the studio monitors.

4:31 So, in the center of the desk, what I look at every day is it's two displays.

4:36 It's been two displays for a long time,

4:37 and the two of them are right above this.

4:40 Uh, I think Groveade makes this, but I don't put the stands on top.

4:44 I slide them underneath,

4:44 and then I lower the monitors so I can store

4:47 little trinkets and stuff like pens and Sharpies in here.

4:50 But these are Proisplay XDRs as of right now.

4:53 I can I could name every monitor I've had in this spot for the last 20 years,

4:58 but Protoplay XDR has gotten the job done

5:01 for regular daily use and a lot of video editing.

5:04 All the way on the far left, actually on top of my desk,

5:07 is the computer I'm using now, the Mac Pro.

5:09 It's weird.

5:10 I think Apple's done with the Mac Pro.

5:12 They kind of stopped updating it years ago.

5:15 This is an M2 Ultra chip.

5:17 They have since made an M3 Ultra Mac Studio.

5:20 And when they eventually make an M4 Ultra and an M5 Ultra,

5:24 I don't know if they're going to make a Mac Pro with that in it.

5:26 I keep using it because I also have like

5:28 90 TB of storage in a PCI slot in there.

5:31 So, yeah, as of 2:25 p.m.

5:33 on January 27th, that is my desk setup.

5:36 I've also been told that Andrew wants to do

5:39 something with my desk for some sort of surprise,

5:42 and uh I green lit it, so I guess I have no choice.

5:45 Uh, take it away, Andrew.

5:49 Eric and I came up with this video idea like 3 months

5:51 ago where we wanted to create Marquez's desk as [music] cheap as possible.

5:55 Like almost look identical, but be like a third, a fourth, a fifth of the price.

6:00 [music] And that all comes down to today.

6:03 So, one really important thing with this build though is I'm not just

6:06 trying to make a cheaper [music] version of a desk that Marquez can use.

6:10 I'm trying to make the cheaper version

6:12 [music] that is identical to Marquez's desk.

6:14 Okay?

6:15 So, we all know Marquez's desk [music] is like way way too expensive.

6:19 So, I replicated it for way cheaper.

6:23 Stick around.

6:23 I'll tell you the price at the end.

6:24 But Marquez hasn't seen [music] this yet.

6:26 So, I'm going to go grab him.

6:28 Any context I should know?

6:30 Nope.

6:30 You can just check it out.

6:31 Okay.

6:31 It's chilly in here.

6:32 Oh, it's my desk.

6:36 My whole desk but remixed.

6:39 First of all, what do you think the purpose of building this desk was?

6:42 To build my desk cheaper.

6:44 Yeah,

6:45 exactly.

6:45 Yeah.

6:45 I mean, the Mac Pro is the Mac Pro, so that's expensive kind of no matter what.

6:50 Mhm.

6:49 But from there, you got this is the keyboard.

6:52 This kind of like this keyboard.

6:57 Wireless sounds good.

6:59 So, this is the Rainy 75 Light.

7:01 And then I bought a pair of $30 key

7:03 caps from Keyron because they matched the aesthetic perfectly.

7:06 That keyboard's cheaper than just the key caps on your keyboard right now.

7:10 That's good.

7:10 This is a really good This is like the OnePlus uh 7 of keyboards.

7:14 [laughter] The really funny story about this is I built the keyboard.

7:19 It was perfect and I hid it in a box that said for studio video do not open.

7:25 And then we come back from Christmas break

7:27 and there's Marquez with a new keyboard on his desk.

7:30 I noticed the key caps are different and I go, "Where'd you find that?" Okay,

7:35 so you've got this little Groveade knockoff desk stand,

7:37 [music] but honestly, they all do the same thing.

7:39 just has to hold stuff.

7:41 All right, for the monitor stand, I think the company's called Kivy.

7:45 For $100, this still came warped.

7:48 It's kind of like bode in the middle.

7:49 The mouse I was looking at.

7:50 Okay, so it's matte black.

7:52 I'm not going to say it's a knockoff of the MX,

7:55 but it is borrowing some of the features inside scroll up here.

7:59 It's ergonomic.

7:59 It's tall and it fits in my hand well.

8:01 It's a little narrower.

8:02 This gets like close,

8:04 but I still I just feel like if you just spend the extra 70,

8:07 [music] I think Marquez wasn't the most fond of it.

8:11 I still think this is kind of a good price.

8:13 It's ergonomic.

8:14 It's super light.

8:16 Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz dongle.

8:18 The materials aren't the best, but you're also paying half of an MXM.

8:22 So, honestly, I like that more than Marquez liked it.

8:25 This mouse pad is red.

8:27 Honestly, it's probably just as good as my mouse pad.

8:30 I just like my very specific artisan mouse.

8:33 Your mouse pad's nicer.

8:34 The two mouse pads Marquez are using are pretty ridiculous.

8:37 They're like very soughta in the gaming community because of the more

8:41 controlled texture they have and they're like 70 bucks a piece.

8:45 A company called Pulsar that I think is one of the most

8:48 underrated gaming mice companies out there has two red ones for 20 bucks.

8:52 Mouse pads, thumbs up.

8:54 I like them.

8:54 Okay, so there's a wireless charger I've always had in the middle.

8:57 It's adhesive to the desk.

8:59 It's not like full adhesive.

9:00 It's like a sticky material to prevent sliding to prevent it from sliding.

9:03 I actually actively slide mine under the and slide it back usually, but still.

9:09 Some of these things are a little harder to find the the cheaper

9:11 versions of because some stuff on your desk isn't so wild.

9:14 Yeah, the bucket's probably not ridiculous.

9:15 But webcam.

9:18 Yes, you have the Opal C1.

9:19 That's a $300 webcam.

9:21 My goal here was to a high quality webcam

9:24 that still had the square aesthetic [music] that you had.

9:27 This is the Obot Meat 2.

9:30 I don't know a ton about webcams,

9:31 but I watched a review from Random Frank P, who showed this off.

9:35 It does have 4K recording.

9:37 It's 99 bucks.

9:39 It's got a nice little magnetic stand, and it's really compact,

9:41 so I actually think it's a [music] pretty solid choice.

9:45 I don't have super big demands from my webcam,

9:48 so obviously the Opel C1 is a pretty premium web.

9:52 It is.

9:52 I believe this is I'm just checking real fast.

9:54 I think this is 99 bucks.

9:55 Yeah,

9:56 that sounds about right.

9:57 Opal's $2.99.

9:58 We've got headphones and DACK over here.

10:00 I've never seen this deck before, but this is It says Evo 4 on it.

10:05 It's by a company called Audient.

10:06 I was really glad when you did your desk tour.

10:08 The one thing I focused on was maybe I can't get it looked to one to one,

10:12 but I want a big knob.

10:15 Yeah.

10:14 For an audio interface, Marquez uses the Apollo Twin.

10:17 It is really expensive.

10:19 So, I reached out to Rufus and Ellis.

10:21 Both of them said Audient was a good company.

10:23 And Audient has so many different interfaces in different price points.

10:28 So I picked one of the cheaper ones and I think we got the vibe going for it.

10:31 Maybe not the perfect replica, but Marquez seemed impressed by it.

10:35 The question is always how good does it sound?

10:37 Like noise floor questions, compatibility questions,

10:40 even bugginess questions cuz the Apollo Twin is quality,

10:43 but it is so buggy sometimes.

10:46 I suspect this would do just fine for me and I would say good deal,

10:49 but I would want to test it a little more.

10:51 H oh HD 6XX.

10:53 So these are going to be very similar.

10:55 This is probably the Mass Drop thing.

10:57 So the HD6XX's are from a company called

11:00 Massdrop which you might know as drop right now.

11:03 Previously they used to reach out to tech

11:05 brands and do some sort of collaboration

11:07 with them to make X product but with Y feature to fit on their website.

11:12 And somehow these are still available.

11:14 They still have the OG Massdrop logo on the side of them.

11:17 They're available on drop.com and they're like half

11:20 the price of the HD 650s that Marquez uses.

11:23 So, it was a no-brainer.

11:26 Incredible.

11:26 So, I I can vouch for these already.

11:28 Those are They're so good.

11:29 Uh I love my Sennheisers.

11:30 They're open back.

11:31 They look sweet.

11:32 They're lightweight.

11:32 They're comfortable.

11:33 These are HS5s.

11:36 Mhm.

11:35 Right.

11:36 Five.

11:36 So, HS5s versus HS8s.

11:38 That's going to be Those are still great.

11:39 So, to get the one replica knockoff vibe we

11:41 were going for, there's only really one option for speakers,

11:44 and that's the HS5s instead of Marquez's HS8s, I asked Rufus and Ellis,

11:48 and they had a bunch of different ideas for really good,

11:51 really wellpriced speakers, but I think overall,

11:53 we just decided to go with these because

11:56 otherwise they just didn't look the same.

11:58 These uh displays are glossy and Oh, they're Pro displays.

12:04 Wait, no, they're not.

12:05 Are they pro display or knockoff?

12:07 Oh, no.

12:07 [laughter] It's a pro display knockoff with HDMI and display port and USBC.

12:14 So, they're still they're the monitors are

12:16 what started this whole idea because they

12:18 were just so kind of absurd of looking exactly like it but being way cheaper.

12:22 These monitors specwise aren't that different from a Proisplay XDR.

12:26 They're 6K 32 in IPS.

12:29 Like for a fifth of the price,

12:30 if you really want something that looks like a Pro Display,

12:34 this is really the only other option there is.

12:36 The monitors here I feel like are

12:39 How much do you think they are?

12:40 I'm really interested in how expensive [music] do you think they are?

12:43 I think these are $400 monitors.

12:47 Oh, no.

12:47 [music] They're more expensive.

12:50 They're 17 each.

12:52 1,700?

12:53 Mhm.

12:53 [music] Don't get these.

12:55 Studio display is cheaper.

12:57 Cheaper.

12:57 Okay.

12:58 Studio display is 1,600.

12:59 I would get a pair of studio displays

13:02 for your Mac before I would get a pair of these.

13:05 Okay.

13:05 There's a couple things we haven't touched on yet.

13:07 Yeah.

13:07 Okay.

13:07 Let's talk about the desk first.

13:09 It is I really like this aesthetic of a desk.

13:12 It's kind of divided into three sections,

13:14 which may just be because that's cheaper than having a huge piece

13:18 and then you maybe [snorts] put it together when you get it.

13:20 So, there was two things I needed in order to replicate Marquez's desk.

13:24 Sitst standing, white top, black legs,

13:26 but also need to be wide enough to fit two monitors,

13:30 two speakers, and a Mac Pro, which is not easy.

13:33 This is a lot of weight on top.

13:34 Yeah, your desk is extremely heavy.

13:37 I'm fairly impressed.

13:38 It's slow.

13:40 It does move pretty solidly.

13:42 It wobbles though.

13:43 Your desk has four legs.

13:44 This has two legs.

13:47 Underrated.

13:46 This is a wobbly desk.

13:48 Yeah.

13:49 I And I That's why I got the the huge surface obviously holds a lot of stuff,

13:52 but the four legs keeps it from like shifting and wobbling.

13:55 I assume if you grabbed them with a more standard size top,

13:59 it probably wouldn't be too bad, but the motors seem good.

14:01 It's from a company called Vivo and it was

14:04 I mean a fraction fraction of what Marquez's desk costs.

14:08 The two biggest things we're missing.

14:09 First of all, the chair is just a chair.

14:12 I don't love recommending chairs that aren't very good

14:15 and still expensive cuz your back is super worth it.

14:18 Um there is something called the IKEA Marcus for like 300 bucks.

14:21 I just put a Herman Miller in here.

14:24 Last but not least, let's check out this computer.

14:27 And there's a hint in the back to see what's actually happening.

14:30 Okay.

14:30 You said it's not a Mac Pro.

14:32 This is not a Mac Pro.

14:34 It's a Mac Mini.

14:37 It's a Mac Mini that I have.

14:40 Can I open this?

14:41 Um, the problem with opening it is the cables are in the way,

14:43 which actually made it really hard to install because I have to put

14:47 the case halfway on to get the wires in and then plug in.

14:50 But I did 3D print a piece so that you can push

14:54 on it and you still can access the power button from the back.

14:56 So, the reason I did this is because I have

14:59 found on eBay parts only Mac Pros for under $100.

15:04 So, if you really really really want the MKBHD aesthetic, you can

15:09 you you can find a case and you can put a Mac Mini.

15:12 I don't recommend this.

15:13 I can recommend something different though.

15:15 It just didn't have the same vibe.

15:16 We 3D printed Oh, that's this Mac Mini case.

15:21 The Mac Mini and a Mac Pro is ridiculous.

15:23 If you kind of like that silly vibe to it,

15:26 just 3D print or buy someone 3D printing.

15:28 This is a Mac Mini case to make it look like a [music] cute little Mac Pro.

15:32 And this is way This is way cooler.

15:35 Can you give me a visual score out of 10?

15:39 It's over an eight.

15:40 It's got to be like an 8 and 1/2.

15:42 I have a spreadsheet.

15:43 Your full desk and this full desk and final prices.

15:47 So that's everything not including the chair and not

15:50 including random phones and stuff on your mat.

15:53 So the total cost total price total setup cost minus the chair and then my

15:57 and your desk.

15:58 Let's guess your desk first.

16:02 Okay.

16:02 Okay.

16:03 So desk plus computer is already 15.

16:08 Both pro displays which are both matte and both have the $1,000 stand.

16:12 So that's like probably $877 14 27,000.

16:21 You're very close.

16:23 [laughter] It is higher than that.

16:25 It's I have 33,330, which is a hilarious price.

16:30 Whoa.

16:31 How much do you think everything right here costs?

16:34 Again, not including chair, not including the couple things on this mouse pad,

16:38 but every other thing you see here.

16:42 63 6 500.

16:48 Very close.

16:48 Also, it comes in like just under 6,000.

16:52 Okay,

16:51 so this whole desk costs less than one of your Pro Display [laughter] XDRs.

16:55 That's crazy.

16:56 Um, [music] I hope people watching this can get

16:59 a sense of like some of these are really awesome.

17:02 And some of these, if you're willing to spend

17:04 a little extra for aesthetic purposes is [music] cool.

17:07 Yeah.

17:08 Nice.

17:09 Well, thanks for watching.

17:09 And if you guys enjoy the behind the scenes of stuff like how we work,

17:12 then you'll probably really enjoy our massive year

17:15 in the life documentary [music] that I'll put right here.